The Apocalypse

The Apocalypse was a several month long conflict that took place between Hell and the combined forces of Heaven and the UDF.

It also marked Humanity's first encounter with a Legion Eternal, Armageddon.

Gavin Reeve
Following the victory against Purloin, Dan and Kitty became acquainted with an enigmatic supernatural named Gavin. He claimed to be possessed by some sort of entity with a hunger for punishing those that it viewed as “sinful”. It caused him to transform into a fiery being that nicknamed itself “The Vengeance”. Dan and Kitty tried to help him cope with his powers, despite the nature of the being inhabiting him being unknown.

After a few days, the group received news that Heaven was once again attacked by the forces of Hell, who had somehow been able to recuperate from their defeat very quickly. Upon arriving to Heaven, they found out that a few of its inhabitants were kidnapped and taken back to Hell.

Armageddon
Gathering a few of Heaven’s warriors with them, the three staged a rescue operation into Hell’s territory. During the mission, the group managed to discover some of the deceased corpses of the captured individuals - seemingly drained of their life force. The group soon came face-to-face with the now-rejuvenated leader of the demons: Armageddon. It was at this point that the tide of the battle changed in the demons' favour as Armageddon showed tremendous power and was seemingly invincible to any attack thrown at him. What remained of the army managed to escape back to Heaven.

During their recovery, Heaven's "mightiest warrior" known as Razael left in pursuit of an ancient weapons cache that was owned by Heaven’s earlier monarchs. As such, Heaven's army was left without a proper commander. The Queen of Heaven, Heather, recognised this as a huge vulnerability and contacted the UEG for assistance.

Espionage
With the arrival of Aaron-157 and a complement of specially trained Elite Commandos, Heaven's army was now under new command - albeit temporarily. With the Commandos, Aaron personally lead a stealth mission into Hell and learned that Armageddon planned to acquire for four "keys" to activate a relic called "The Eye of Time".

Upon returning to Heaven and questioning Heather, the Queen revealed that The Eye of Time was a machine that was constructed by an ancient race of incredibly advanced beings. The Eye was said to grant its user complete control over time itself, and it was built as an extreme fail-safe measure during an ancient war against an unknown, powerful enemy. It could only be activated with four keys. No one knew where these keys were

Aaron deemed it crucial to go after the keys before Armageddon did, and try to ascertain their whereabouts by any means necessary. Organising a larger spec-ops team comprised of some of Heaven’s soldiers, Kitty, Dan and Gavin as well as his Commandos, Aaron led a second stealth operation into demonic territory to gather more intelligence.

The First Key
Shortly after arriving, they realised that it was too late. Armageddon had already ordered a fleet of demonic ships to retrieve the first key. Aaron quickly ordered his team to board any ship that was closest to them so that they may stow away and be present for when they uncover the key. Some of the spec ops team were successful while the remainder opted to stay behind and keep to the shadows until rescue arrived or an opportunity to escape presented itself.

Soon, the fleet arrived at an unknown planet and landed, after which the demons began to drill into the core of the planet where the first key was located. The key was eventually extracted, prompting everyone to attack. Recovering the key, the team commandeered the demonic ships before receiving an alarming transmission on the ship’s communications array: a second demonic fleet had been unknowingly dispatched at the same time and had already recovered the second key.

Meanwhile in Hell, Endymion grew increasingly uneasy with the new leadership. Armageddon promised him power, yet his inner convictions seemed to conflict with what he had been taught by his father all his life. It was here that the seeds of doubt were planted within him.

Upon returning to Hell, Aaron contacted his remaining forces in Hell and ordered them to retreat back to Heaven while they provided covering fire from the stolen ships. As they bombarded the realm with the fleet's weaponry, Hell's self-defenses retaliated and the fleet only barely made it back to Heaven. Aaron handed the first key to Queen Heather for protection.

While they had stalled Armageddon's plans to activate the Eye of Time, they only had one key and the whereabouts of the other two were unknown. The ships they had commandeered were far too damaged to utilise now, and another stowaway tactic was unlikely to work a second time. It was then that Dan came up with the idea of waiting for the demons to find the other keys, after which they would attack Hell full force and steal them. After some debate, the others reluctantly agreed.

Aaron pointed out that by then, the still recovering UDF could have a fleet ready for them to aid them in the attack. In the meantime, they’d build up their forces enough to increase the chances of their plan succeeding. Small teams of Commandos would also frequently be sent to and from Hell in order to provide updates on Armageddon’s activities.

The Remaining Keys
A few days later, news reached that two more demonic fleets had been dispatched and arrived only a few hours later, presumably carrying the remaining keys. Aaron gave everyone an hour to prepare before they staged their assault. However before they could finish preparations, the Elite Commandos providing intel from Hell, returned with a guest: Endymion. Having decided that he was on the wrong side, Endymion handed the remaining three keys over to Queen Heather and departed both Heaven and Hell to parts unknown.

With the keys now in their possession, Aaron proposed attacking Hell anyway and finishing the demons off once and for all, however Dan pointed out that they couldn’t afford to do so at this point, as Armageddon was soon to realise that the keys were missing and the first place he would attack is Heaven. It was then decided that they would use whatever time they had to fortify Heaven’s defences as much as they could, and await the arrival of the UDF fleet to stage an invasion.

After continued experimentation with the Keys, Kitty identified a mechanism in each of them that allowed her to fit them together like a puzzle. After doing so, the Keys projected a holographic map of a star system that displayed the Eye of Time’s coordinates. As the process of fortifications continued, Aaron received a message from the arriving UDF fleet that they had been recalled to Earth due to a surprise demonic invasion.

Soon after, Heaven was hit hard by an army of demons. A gruelling battle ensued and Heaven’s forces as well as the Heroes held their own against the onslaught. However that soon changed when Armageddon arrived. He effortlessly destroyed the defenses and captured both the Keys and Queen Heather. Aaron proceeded to give pursuit with his Commandos.

The Temple
With little time to spare, Dan contacted the UDF with an emergency broadcast. Having thwarted the Earth invasion, the Humans sent a small fleet which soon arrived. Dan, Kitty, Gavin and a group of Heaven’s soldiers boarded the flagship: the Destiny’s Harbinger, and followed the coordinates provided by the keys to the very edge of the galaxy. As the ship left warpspace, they came upon a large temple-like structure orbiting a star.

A few hours passed as more UDF ships joined the Harbinger at the Temple and proceeded to set up defensive positions. Soon however, a large mass appeared just outside the range of their defences: a city-sized fortress ripped straight from the ground of Hell, ominously made its way towards the Temple.

A chaotic space battle broke out between the Fortress and the defensive fleet. Gavin, Kitty and Dan took a drop ship to the Temple with a battalion of Marines and Heaven soldiers. They were tasked with gaining entry to, and defending the inside of The Temple from boarding parties. The Fortress eventually arrived at the temple despite UDF resistance, and multiple demonic hordes were set upon the Temple, causing the defending battalion to be overrun within minutes. The three Heroes were forced to move into the main chamber of the structure, where they faced off against Armageddon.

A three-on-one fight between them ensued, with Aaron, who had stowed away onboard the Fortress joining the fight shortly thereafter. Surprisingly, Ven also arrived out of nowhere to join the battle. However, Armageddon eventually overpowered them and beat down the Heroes of Old.

He proceeded to use the four keys to activate a portal at the centre of the room. Passing through this gate would allow him to fulfil his goal of controlling time. Just as he was about to step into it, Razael arrived and with a single swipe of his newly acquired weapon, the Arclight Blade, he sent a wave of energy into the portal and destroyed it, knocking Armageddon through a wall in the process. Quickly, the warrior gathered the battered heroes and escaped, with the UDF and Heaven forces retreating from the fight soon after.

Invasion of Earth
While recovering on Earth, Dan who by this point had been struggling with the Blue Fire Demon within him, began to grow more aggressive as he continued to lose control over his destructive desires. As a result, he departed the group, with no one knowing where he went.

News soon reached that Armageddon’s Fortress had arrived over the planet. The Earth was instantly besieged as fleets of Demonic ships rained fired down onto the planet, with the Humans retaliating against them.

Aaron prepared for an operation into the Fortress to kill Armageddon and save Queen Heather. Razael joined in, possessing the only weapon capable of killing Armageddon. He was followed by Kitty who also decided to join in the mission. With some reluctance, Gavin also decided to participate. To everyone’s surprise, Endymion also appeared and promised to help with the mission - claiming that it was all his fault as he was the one to revive Armageddon.

On their way up to the Fortress, their dropship was shot down and crash landed on the edge of it. After clearing the wreckage, the group made their way inside. The UDF had also launched drop pods onto different parts of the Fortress. These pods contained Elite Commandos, who attacked different areas inside the Fortress in an effort to attack from multiple points at once. Razael, who saw Armageddon floating above the fortress earlier, left the group to engage the giant directly.

As the team fought through the Fortress, they arrived at its central chamber, located at its belly. The chamber housed a massive cannon in its center, which was pointed directly down towards Earth. Endymion explained that this “Purge Cannon” was something Armageddon planned to use the cannon on Earth, which would kill every living thing on the planet. As an additional side effect, the magical nature of the cannon would cause all of the planet’s natural resources to become exposed on the surface, ripe for mining. Armageddon planned to turn Earth into his very own, planet-sized fortress.

Endgame
Razael’s duel with Armageddon did not last for long, and the warrior was swiftly knocked away from the fight. This however, gave an opening for the surrounding UDF fleet, and Armageddon was temporarily incapacitated by one of the ships’ mass accelerator cannons.

The central chamber of the fortress was now cleared with multiple explosive charges set, ready to detonate and destroy the cannon. Before they could activate the timer, the entire group was suddenly levitated into the air and thrown down a large gap surrounding the cannon. They landed on a circular platform floating just beneath the Fortress, and were confronted by a severely injured Armageddon. He challenged the heroes to a final confrontation - promising to make “quick work” of them before destroying their planet. Aaron, Kitty, Gavin faced off against him. Razael  soon joined the fight.

The arrival of Ven, again in his dragon form momentarily tipped the odds in the Heroes’s favour. However, the enraged giant ignored the punishment and fought back viciously, swatting Razael and Kitty away, wrestling Ven to the ground, knocking Gavin out and brutally beating Aaron to a pulp.

Razael attempted to intervene but was incinerated in the process, causing him to drop the Arclight Blade. While Armageddon prepared to finish the Heroes off starting with Aaron,  Kitty made use of Razael’s distraction and impaled Armageddon through the heart with the Blade. The giant was for a moment surprised, before accepting and succumbing to his fate and falling off the platform. His corpse fell into Earth’s atmosphere and seemingly burnt up in the process.

As the siege on Earth ended with the victory of the UDF, the Fortress materialised over Hell and with the help of the Destiny’s Harbinger’s AI, Sheila, the Purge Cannon was fired down onto the surface, destroying the realm for good.

Outcome
Kitty and Gavin returned to Earth and Aaron continued to serve the UDF. Heaven meanwhile began to rebuild, starting with a memorial dedicated to Razael. The Fortress was officially decommissioned by NIA for further study. It seemed that the Demonic Crusade had been completely destroyed, and life on Earth and Heaven returned to normal.